The book is about East India Company it's origins and the story of it's transaction into one of the most powerful business empires of it's times. The initial history is lucidly explained in detail and is made interesting. The author has researched well and takes us step by step logically, historically explaining the rational behind every step and quoting historical documents n memoirs. There were many things which I found new. Which are not part of our folklore and history here in the subcontinent. But towards the end the book leaves a bad taste. The details give way to a hurried effort of squeezing final years into few pages n paragraphs. Many important battles and negotiations are left unexplained. The glories are briefly touched upon but there seems to be an effort to gloss over the not so glorious points of Company's history. Overall an informative and well researched effort. Good maps. Though maps are all in the beginning and one has to always.get back to connect places to them, a constant pain which cannot be helped I guess. Being from sub continent if one is looking for the details into company's doings n battles for power in bengal, Bihar, Southern India and marhatta lands you ll be disappointed. It just glosses over them mostly. It's basically a description of that economic giant known as Kompany, what were it's aims, who ran it and how, power centers modus opperndi etc etc
What starts off as an exciting early history of British trade in Asia quickly peters into an overdrawn blow-by-blow account of the history of the company's many struggles. Every small character is given pages of description while major characters like Clive, Hastings and Tipu are given short shrift. Finally, the author seems to have just run out of patience. What else could explain the opium wars of china being consigned to the epilogue. There is somewhere a wonderful book to be written and read about the East India Company. Approximately half of that book is here.
This book was great for the various tidbits of trivia and historical facts related to the evolution of the English East India Company. Covering a period of close to 200 years, tales related to the company seeking profits from the spice trade, the negotiations with the Mughal emperors, establishment of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta, the Carnatic wars against the French, the export of opium to China from Bengal,how China and not India was its most lucrative trading partner, the menace of Tipu and much much more come alive in these 450 pages.
—Manish
There cannot be many people unaware of the size and power of the British Empire at its peak, but how many know of the origins of the empire? Military conquest came well after the commercial monolith that was the East India Company had opened up trade routes all the way to Indonesia for the nation. The Company made many fabulously wealthy, ruined many more, and left glory and misery in its wake. It left behind the legends of Robert Clive and the Black Hole of Calcutta, and was so prosperous and important that when poor decisions and the rise of other powers in the region pushed it to the brink, the British government was forced to take over its charter and nationalise it.The history of the Company is long and laced with military intrigue, monumental blunders, great misfortune, daring, heroic deeds, and failure on the rocks of hubris. Keay narrates his exceptionally well researched account ably, coming up short only in that there is too much to tell in one volume.
—Mike
